Sophie’s Dream

Tangled Leaves Theatre Collective invites you on a playfully wild journey through the wilderness of the imagination, where trees dance, the sun is blue, and the sky is yellow.

Imaginative, ethereal and insightful, Sophie’s Dream is about the profound connection between dreaming, waking up, and bringing forth the soul’s deepest desires. Sophie is a creative soul, striving to build a bridge between her rich inner reality and the exterior world,yearning to express her passions.

Sophie’s Dream is a love story unfolding. Sophie encounters Gray, a man whose presence is at once disconcerting, comforting, and exhilarating.

The cast of six characters includes three Tree Muses and The Woman at the Piano – all playful visitors who remind Sophie who she was, who she is and who she is meant to become. This play-with-a-live-soundtrack is chock-full of truth-telling dialogue and lyrics, haunting melody and harmony, shimmering dream-scapes and transformational discovery.

Jordan Schramka (Sophie) will be entering her fourth year of training at CCM in the Fall. She has appeared on the CCM stage as Katherine Driscoll in Bury the Dead, Young Woman in Blood Wedding, Sister Temple in Orpheus Descending, The Courtesan in Transmigration’s Barren, and Sarah in Transmigration’s Change Corp. Her other Cincinnati theatre credits include: Sally in Reefer Madness: the Musical at the Know Theatre of Cincinnati, and Anne in the Showboat Majestic’sCheaper by the Dozen. She is thrilled and thankful to be working in collaboration with all of these wonderfully, talented artists.

Nicholas Petrrica – (Gray / Teddie)

Seeking adventures across the country and as far as London, UK, Nicholas Petricca, 23, has begun a promising career as a young songwriter, recording artist, and orchestrator. Seen most often singing with jubilant indie-rock quartet Walk the Moon, Petricca also performs his own solo material and provides other artists (including playwright Serenity Fisher and funk legend Bootsy Collins) with arrangements for strings, horns, and voice.

Petricca studied theater at Kenyon College, though he graduated with a degree in Music Composition & Theory. His theater credits include The Last Five Years (Jamie) and Tweflth Night (Feste) at Kenyon, as well as Clear Stage Cincinnati’s Romeo & Juliet (Mercutio’s understudy). Petricca also studied songwriting at Goldsmiths/University of London, and returned to the UK when Walk the Moon was invited to play at the London City Showcase in 2008. There, Walk the Moon was the one artist from North America selected by Sonicbids to play the city-wide festival. The Ohio indie band, whose sound evokes Talking Heads, the Killers, and Grizzly Bear, continues to perform around Cincinnati and the US. Find them online at myspace.com/walkthemoonband.

Aretta Baumgartner –

Aretta is a performer/teaching artist specializing in puppetry, mask and movement. She’s a core actor in the artists’ collaborative known as Performance Gallery (look for her/them in “the council” elsewhere at the Fringe…) and a vocalist for the Steely Dan tribute band AJA; and does all sorts of puppet and drama programming under the name/company “ImagineNation.” Recent projects include “Adding Machine: A Musical” with the Know Theatre of Cincinnati, “Equus” with New Edgecliff Theatre, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” with the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts Center and “Phantom of the Music Hall” with Madcap Puppets and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Up next: “Cotton Patch Gospel” with/at the Showboat Majestic (July 2010). Aretta is soooo happy to be living this DREAM–and thanks these amazing ladies (and one wonderful guy!) for going out of their way to make it possible for her to play with them.

Taylor Cloyes –

At CCM: Transmigration: (fun)eral, and Blood Wedding. Taylor attended James E. Taylor High School where she was in various productions including The Crucible (Abigail), Look Homeward, Angel(Helen), The Taming of the Shrew (Katharine), and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Miss Brodie).

Ellie Jameson –

Originally from Olympia, Washington, Ellie is currently headed into her sophomore year at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM Drama) where she is earning her BFA in dramatic performance. This year at CCM, Ellie appeared as Christine Shoenwalder in Picnic as well as Erde in “Flushed”, a piece performed at CCM Drama’s festival of student-created works, Transmigration. Next fall, she will be playing Irene Molloy in The Matchmaker. Outside of Cincinnati, she appeared in many productions at the Olympia Theater in Olympia, Washington, favorites being: Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible and Karen Andre in The Night of January 16th. Ellie also appeared as Jennifer in the film World’s Greatest Dad,which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2009. Ellie is more than jazzed to be taking a journey through “Sophie’s Dream”. Working and playing with such an amazing group of talented, inspiring creators is a dream come true of her own!